


The Way We Twirl Around Each Other

by Jen425



Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider OOO, Tokusatsu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Developing Relationships, Gen, Greed Eiji, M/M, literally everyone is here istg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: It’s a coincidence.(Or maybe it’s fate.)——•——In which Eis is a Greed, and Anku is OOO, and less might change than you think.
Relationships: Ankh/Hino Eiji, Date Akira/Gotou Shintarou, or tag - Relationship, …too many major platonic ones to count
Comments: 32
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to my lovely friends Scarlett and Joji for egging me on and giving me a genius idea for the final chapter.
> 
> Also a note on names
> 
> Eiji = Eis, which is the German word for ice and pronounced as such. I… kinda gave up on finding him a good name. Whoops.
> 
> The Ankh we know from Canon is Anku. The question of whether or not Anku is this Ankh’s reincarnation or just oddly similar is left purposely vague

800 years ago a blind girl tells a Greed that she wants to see and he’s young and he doesn’t know how to help.

He’s young and he doesn’t quite  _ want _ to because this is no Bird Greed, this is a  _ dinosaur _ , this is something mythic, and so this Greed’s Yummy does not take eyes for a girl but simply destroys them.

The people in the girl’s village are left suddenly in darkness, suddenly, at the very least, in the same situation, and they are scared, and they panic.

Eis was the prototype and so of course he was dangerous. He was a desire for nothingness and future attempts weren’t quite so… dangerous.

But he wiped out a village trying to help a little girl who just wanted to see.

She cries at the sounds of everyone else’s fear and pain, and she says “I just wanted to see.”

“I’m sorry,” Eis replies. “I tried to help.”

He doesn’t say “I wanted to help.”

Back then, he couldn’t even want.

  
  
  


(Maybe that’s when his not-quite desire is born, wanting to want and to help before he could ever acknowledge desire.)

  
  
  


There is a bird Greed, still, and his name is Ankh. He is the second attempt, and he is unlike Eis built upon a base. He is also the closest thing Eis has to a friend.

They twirl around each other and around a nameless something, even as Eis follows the King where the others leave. Even if, regardless, they are Greed and cannot fully trust each other.

If Eis is nothingness, Ankh is his opposite, Ankh is the incredibly human desire for  _ life _ .

When Eis kills Ankh in the battle with the King, shatters the Bird Greed’s most Core of Core Medals, he wonders at the irony, as Ankh, who was maybe always destined to be a little bit more human, maybe a bit more alive, presses instead one of his Kujaku Medals beneath Eis’ skin. Like a promise, or a threat, or maybe even an “it’s okay”, as though Ankh was capable of any of the three.

When the King overloads himself on power, well, Eis is a prototype, who clenches his hand around the screaming OOO Driver.

(But it was not any power or all of it, the thing that, in this world, seals away these monsters of desire.

It was that the King, in his endless greed and desire, tried to overcome nothingness.

He failed.)

All but the three purple Medals which the King uses, including, almost, Eis’ own Tyranno Core, will fall to the ground beside what is left of Ankh.

And no one will once question about the soul of a Greed, because no on would imagine that they possessed one.

And no one will ever be able to know whether or not they’re right.

  
  
  


Hino Kankuro goes by Anku as much on a rejection of his family as on a not-memory of another life he may very well not have and most certainly does not remember.

Who were they to treat human lives so cheaply. Who was he to think he could save anyone?

(Who was he to run away, to so selfishly want to live that he let himself survive?)

(Who was he to so desperately want to save lives only to break and allow for his own sole survival?)

It’s the first time he’s been back in Japan since he left, and he needs money, why else would he ever choose a security job? He’d simply found this yellow coin lying on the ground!

It’s a coincidence.

  
  
  


(Or maybe it’s fate.)

  
  
  


Eis awakens and all he has is the Kujaku Ankh had given him, his own Ptera and Tyranno, and a Bata of Uva’s, and his body consists of no more than an arm.

He awakens, but as he takes the OOO Driver and runs, he catches sight of Anku by chance, and really, he should in no way have found him familiar.

Most likely it really is a coincidence. A passing familiarity, a hair style unwittingly similar to curved feathers as hard as stone on a face with a single eye. Or just an odd void of desire which masks something far larger.

(Eis is the Greed of nothingness, and he is the prototype, and he can sense nothingness versus desire far easier than any other ever could.)

And then he realizes that he’s hungry, and he can feel someone else’s Yummy, and, when he gets there, so is Anku.

  
  
  


“What the fuck is that?” Anku growls, staring at the monster. There is a floating hand, which he’d caught out of the corner of his eyes and assumed to be a trick of the lights, and it’s talking to him.

“It’s a Yummy,” the hand replies. “It will satisfy its desire until it is destroyed. No good will come of this.”

“And how the hell do you stop that thing?”

The police officers arrive. They are defeated, and they look all but dead. One of them is, not that a small difference matters in that moment.

And Hino Anku is many things, but one thing that will never change is how much  _ life _ means to him.

“Hand,” Anku says. “How. Do I stop that thing?”

And Eis is many things, but deep down, a wish that will turn into a desire that will destroy him wants to see what made the odd nothingness hiding desire within this human that  _ somehow _ reminds him of Ankh shake and tremble and still be enough for this human to  _ try _ .

And he’s hungry, and he’s a Greed, and whatever his good intentions that he will not understand or acknowledge for some time yet, he does, quite simply, want the medals.

He is still just a Greed.

What people don’t know is that the first combination you use with the OOO Driver becomes a Combo in itself.

In this world, it is not TaToBa but PuJaBa that will fulfill the function.

  
  
  


Izumi Shingo is at the edge of death, the edge of nothingness, and it calls to Eis like a pull.

When he stands up in his new form, Shingo’s hair is longer and contains twin streaks of white and purple.

“…huh,” he says. “This’ll be useful.”

Anku growls “what the fuck did you do to that officer?”

Eis hmms and says “follow me.”

  
  
  


The hand’s name is Eis, and he is all that is keeping the officer alive.

He is a Greed, an ancient being made of desire, and the others will continue to make those Yummies, those things that killed the other officer.

Anku doesn’t want to care. He wishes he could stop, but deep down is that desire to save lives under layers and layers of giving up from failure.

Eis wants Medals. Anku wants to stop the Greed from hurting people.

For now, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.

“If you’ll let me save people,” Anku growls. “I’m not the type of person who gets used.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Do we have a deal?”

“I hate you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

  
  
  


And both are sure that they’re using the other.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things continue.
> 
> (They aren’t more than allies, yet.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooooo! Chapter two!
> 
> And this is the fun one

Izumi Hina is worried. She has not seen her brother in days. He doesn’t answer her calls, he doesn’t do… anything of the sorts.

He doesn’t come home.

Anku and Eis need a place to sleep, and they need more money than Medals, and so they still go to Cous Cousier. It’s still Eis’ idea, but this time it is because Eis has Shingo’s memories and phone, and honestly the jobs are accidental, he just thought up the place because of his body’s new phantom sensation, the first desire he’d ever felt fully because it wasn’t quite his: hunger.

But when Hina first sees Eis, well… plans change.

You know how this goes.

“You know each other?” Chiyoko asks.

“No.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Onii-Chan…”

  
  
  


(That isn’t your brother, Hina,” Anku says. “But maybe,  _ maybe, _ he can still save Izumi Shingo’s life.”)

  
  
  


But perhaps we should back up.

  
  
  


Date Akira has the simple and powerful desire to live, and nothing else matters nearly as much, when working with Kougami, than a powerful desire.

Oh of course the desire takes form in a need for money, and there’s far more than that under the surface.

It’s why, when he sees Hino Kankuro in the OOO armor, he’s maybe less likely to trust. He knows about a boy who went to help but ran after being confronted with fear and failure.

Nonetheless, he explains, some, and he provides the candroids, the RideVendor explanations.

Eis, the Greed, says conserving Medals is important, if Anku wants anything out of him.

Life goes on in infinite new directions.

  
  
  


“So where are you sleeping at, while you’re here in Japan?”

“Wherever.”

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Oi, Eis!”

“I mean, rocks don’t… feel? That comfortable, so it’s not really worth it.”

“You guys don’t have a place to stay?”

“…”

“Oh, that won’t do.”

  
  
  


Eis likes spicy foods, ironically. Hot and spicy.

Though perhaps it makes perfect sense, if, in another life, a Greed with powers of fire would love ice.

He’ll try anything once, and he marvels just a bit more openly at his senses than another Greed would.

And, because deep down where he doesn’t even know it and could never acknowledge or understand it, yet, he wants to help, he helps work, too. He’s softer on the outside than Anku is.

  
  
  


There are bombs and Anku is shaking but he got the people  _ away _ .

He knows a thing or two about bombs and death and he finds nothing redeemable about a man who would play with something deadly, because he knows what it’s like to be ducking from shrapnel and trying to get somewhere safe.

He says none of this, but a reminder, again, that there is nothing Anku values as much as human life.

It’s the only reason he does not kill the host of this Yummy.

  
  
  


“I only have two of my Medals,” Eiji says.

“Then give me the other one, too!” Ankh growls. “I know you’re the most powerful Greed, now…”

“That’s… no! I can’t do it!”

“Why?”

“Because only my Pteras work outside a combo, which we don’t have  _ any of _ , actually,” Eiji growls back. “Because you LOST TWO OF OUR GODDAMN MEDALS!!!”

  
  
  


In some ways, Eis hurts Hina more than Ankh ever could, because his smile is too soft, too close to Shingo’s, whenever his near-perpetual frown breaks. Because he looks at her honestly and says “I don’t know if I can save your brother. I’m the Greed of nothingness.”

In some ways he hurt more because sometimes peaking through scowls and an instinctive selfishness intrinsic to all Greed, he is kind, and it’s easier to see than the way Ankh grew to love his People before he even realized he could.

And in some ways it hurts Eis, too.

He’s allowed nothings, and he wants her  _ not _ to hurt.

  
  
  


Eis and Anku are not some perfect pair, not less likely to shoot each other in the back, at the start.

Anku does not care about Medals. He does not care that they are a Greed’s life, their sustenance, their being, because Greed are not alive, and they can only be destroyed by Eis, regardless, both statements which he had dragged from the Greed in question. Nor does he care about individual people, the stories of their lives that interest Eis in the complexity of their desires. He is incredibly selfish for someone with all but no desires, and Eis finds himself angry at it.

Eis wants something nameless, and he wants to be whole. He is destruction incarnate and he is so, so very selfish. He is kind but he does not understand why. He is so incredibly stupid and difficult to work with.

And yet, both need OOO to defeat Yummies.

  
  
  


“You wrap yourself in this void of desire but it’s  _ fake _ ,” Eis growls. “I can see it in there, whatever you want is  _ huge. _ ”

“I don’t know  _ what  _ you’re talking about,” Anku growls back, shoving him in the river.”

“Imagine being able to desire,” Eis says. “And  _ wasting  _ it!”

Anku growls again.

“Does it  _ matter? _ ” He asks. “Hina is in  _ danger. _ ”

“You see?” Eis asks. “There is something you  _ want. _ ”

  
  
  


(It’s still far too early for either to care for the other. Anku is scared to, and Eis… he doesn’t know how.)

  
  
  


Hina meets Satonaka by chance as much as by, well, shared friends. They bond over fashion and goals, and it feels so good to have someone to talk to, who somewhat understands being in the middle of this.

Someone who answers her questions, occasionally.

Far more than the others, at least.

  
  
  


Chiyoko has two new employees and they are strange yet so obviously in need of someone who cares.

Anku is quiet about himself, but Eis is somehow more tight lipped about it, despite his ability to appear so friendly. Anku’s traveled, and sometimes he’ll tell little stories, but Eis…

“Don’t mind him,” Anku says, one day. “He was built in a swirling pit of the wicked desires of the dead.”

“He’s not technically wrong,” Eis adds, snark evident on his voice.

They are strange, and sometimes they’ll run of in the middle of the day.

But that’s okay, because both so clearly need a home.

(Hina does, too, it's obvious in her eyes… and Chiyoko knows she misses her missing brother.)

  
  
  


In the background, villains move unaltered even as heroes change. Maki plans, Kazari schemes, Mezool babies Gamel who loves her as much as a Greed can. Uva wants money.

A broken child remnant of a bird who wanted to live senses… something.

Purple Medals desire a host who join them in desiring nothingness.

Nothing changes, here. Fate will always guide the path.

  
  
  


Eis likes saving people. He doesn’t quite know when he realizes it, but he does. He likes knowing that they are still alive, but he also likes knowing that, just maybe, their lives are a little better.

He hates the Yummies who are formed off of good intentions. Because he knows no good can come of them.

He knows he was so young and freshly made, once, and he couldn’t even help a blind girl see.

He knows that this desire is dangerous.

Nothingness cannot want something, even something so impossible to define.

  
  
  


Goto Shintaro left the police because he felt he did no good, there, but then he didn’t know what to do.

He wanted to save the world, but that’s a high order.

If there’s one thing Kougami loves, it’s impossibly huge desires that do not disagree with his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all ready for me to completely gut and rewrite the Lost Ankh and Dino Cores arcs? But like. Hopefully still make them okay. I guess.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plots thicken.
> 
> (There’s more beneath the surface.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chap was fun to write. The loops I ran through to justify certain basic plots from the original.

A year before he became a superhero, Anku had wanted to just save any lives at all. He valued life. A chance for people to live it to their fullest. To have a chance to live it happily and healthily.

(He still does).

He hadn’t known what he was getting into, and his father manipulated the story.

Used his simple desire to make these people’s lives better for his own ends.

And Anku… how much better had he been?

He’d tried to save that village, but he’d failed, and what had he done in his failure? He’d run, and he’d let his father tell the twisted narrative.

As if people hadn’t  _ died _ .

But maybe Ankh had been the one to fail, thinking that shoving money at a problem could ever save lives. All it did was ruin them.

He’d tried to help.

The only one he thinks he ever spit out the whole story to was Eis, one night.

And he doesn’t know why.

  
  
  


(“So yeah, maybe I don’t want to get caught up in the hosts’ lives,” he growls. Eis looks up at him.

“No, I think you want to,” he says. “But you’re afraid.”

Anku scoffs.

“Not that you could ever understand,” he growls. “You can’t want anything at all.”

Eis hmms, hides the feeling so of pain that the comment brings up because he simply doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I guess not.”)

  
  


Anku is not Ankh. Eis is sure of it, because what else could Anku be, Ankh’s reincarnation? Greed don’t even have souls  _ to _ reincarnate. It’s a coincidence that the way Anku wears his hair looks like Anku’s crest, or that Anku describes the sky the same way Ankh did.

Anku is not Ankh but under his skin, Eis can feel the Kujaku Medal straining to reach Anku, like a beacon to find the other.

And yet…

  
  
  


Goto does not entirely like his new partner, the snarky yet skilled Date Akira, Doctor turned fighter for some reason, obsessed with udon and money.

He does not like OOO, an asshole who makes clear how little he cares about the people they come across, or his partner, Eis, a Greed himself who uses a human body.

“They’re a bit more than they seem, Goto-Chan,” Date points out. “You don’t know where Anko came back from, after all.”

“And you do?”

“I think I put the pieces together.”

He does not like them, but he wants to save the world.

For now, he can work with them.

  
  
  


Eis doesn’t talk as much as the others do about retrieving his Cores, but Anku assumes that the reason is fear of what Anku could use that knowledge for, and its obviously not  _ normal _ for a Greed to be no more than an arm, not when all the others are seemingly humanoid.

Eis says nothing, but he has no need to.

Ankh has it all figured out.

And so he says nothing to the Greed of the second Tyranno and the Tricera in his back pocket. It’s useful to have something over the crafty Greed.

Until he tells him, and Eis leaves.

  
  
  


“For now, we need each other.”

“I guess so.”

“Be careful with those Medals, they’re dangerous.”

“Like you can even care? I’m needed.”

  
  
  


PuToTyra overwhelms him with its power, and it could rip him apart if he isn’t careful, but, of the things Anku is, careful is one of them.

He still collapses, after the fight, from the injuries of  _ being thrown off a goddamn building _ .

If either looked, in that moment, they would see Eis hesitate between Anku and his Medals.

But they would see him choose his Medals.

(He is still not ready to accept his desire. But perhaps that is a good thing, for his own sake.)

  
  
  


PuToTyra is unique because the King had never used it, it had been the combo which consumed them all.

The King could never comprehend wanting  _ nothing _ .

  
  
  


As if that weren’t yet terrible enough, Maki reveals his allyship with the Greed, and the Bird Yummies begin to appear.

It’s Goto who blames Eis, because who else could it be?

Dinosaurs evolved into birds, and there is no Bird Greed, just Medals. Eis had made that perfectly clear, with the closest thing to sadness he knows how to show.

Ankh is  _ dead _ , for all that a Greed can die, he no longer exists. Forget that once they had flown together, and Eis had watched him reach for the sun like Icarus.

But there are Bird Yummies, so who else could it possibly be?

Eis does not deny it, but he never would. Anku surprises himself by denying it in his place.

  
  
  


“What’s it like, to want to help people?”

“I never said that’s what I wanted.”

“Then what do you want?”

“…”

  
  
  


Satonaka Erika has a simple desire: money. What she uses it for is her business, and she works for what she’s paid for. She is not disobedient, nor is she mindlessly complacent, and it is what scores her such s top position.

She fights with the Births when she’s paid to. She is not heartless, she knows the stakes, but she knows what they can handle.

She does not waste her time.

  
  
  


It’s not Ankh, it  _ looks _ like him, to some extent, but it’s face and it’s arm are  _ wrong _ , and it sounds nothing like the original Bird Greed.

And when it stands in front of Eiji, the Kujaku in his own arm rips itself towards Anku, alongside three more, from the Greec that is in no way Ankh.

“You’re… me,” it says.

“He’s  _ not _ ,” Eis growls back at it. “And you  _ aren’t Ankh! _ ”

Greed can’t love, but Eis was the prototype.

Or maybe it’s just that he’s been attached to Izumi Shingo for so long that he’s a little bit more than Greed.

When not-Ankh attacks Anku, Eis gets in his way.

“For now, I need him more,” he says. “Either way.”

Not-Ankh hmms, and he leaves.

…For now.

  
  
  


(A dangerous reality: Maki now knows a human can become one with Core Medals.

Perhaps even become a Greed.

And still yet there are six missing Medals of a Dinosaur Greed.)

  
  
  


Eis is the Greed of nothingness, and he has a desire.

He  _ wants _ to help people.

There is no good ending here.

  
  
  


“What the fuck is this?” Anku growls. “I though humans couldn’t have Core Medals.”

“They can’t,” Eis replies. “Humans could  _ never _ understand how Greed desire.”

“So he’s turning into a Greed, then?” Hina asks.

Eis has no reply that could serve them, so he says nothing.

“Guess I know what’s hidden under that nothingness, now,” is what he eventually decides upon.

Life.

  
  
  


(A secret: Greed cannot love, and Anku is terrified to.)

(A bigger secret: they are falling in love, anyways.)

  
  
  


One by one, five purple Medals  _ plink _ into Maki’s head.

Count them one…

Two…

Three…

Four…

Five…

  
  
  


“A second belt?”

“We both knew of Maki’s plans.”

Satonaka Erika desires no more than money. But this might be worth it, for the suns.

  
  
  


Meanwhile, Uva plans to revive the remaining two Greed.

  
  
  


“Hey, Anku?” Eis asks. “What do you want?”

“I…”

“Nevermind…”

“I just wanted to give them a chance to live  _ well _ ,” Anku says. “I… just wanted to live.”

Eis… doesn’t know what to say. So he doesn’t reply.

Anku thinks about a girl and a village and giving up when he feared for his life, letting his father use him and their lives as all but toys or chess pieces.

Eis thinks about the heart that isn’t his, beating in his chest, and of helping people and how good it feels right there.

  
  
  


Working with Kougami isn’t getting Goto what he wants. But perhaps… perhaps Maki can.

“Not that I blame you for taking a better deal,” Date says. “But is this really what you want, Goto-Chan?”

“And what  _ do  _ you want, Date-San?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battles for power begin.
> 
> (The end draws ever closer)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hey this chapter is a lot of fun for me but I’m almost sorry for you guys.

TaJaDor is different on Anku.

With the King, it had simply been another Combo, one of many used in that flurry of a final battle.

But Anku is not Ankh and yet he  _ is _ becoming a Bird Greed.

Before, Eis couldn’t see beauty, but there is dark green and gold shimmering in the patterns on a now crimson suit, where all others, even PuToTyra, are plain, and the wings of Kujaku now hang as a permanent cape, in equally brilliant golds and greens and crimson reds.

He’s beautiful. He’s powerful.

But Anku could fight PuToTyra; TaJaDor simply consumes him, and he is left panting on the ground, in the aftermath of a rampage. There’s terror in his kohl-rimmed eyes.

He refuses to stop.

  
  
  


Date doesn’t say where Goto has gone, for the past two weeks, but no one doubts that it’s somewhere dangerous, and, in the meantime, events slowly piece together Anku’s past.

Not-Ankh stalks them, and that isn’t even the worst part, because  _ dinosaur Yummies are around _ . By Anku’s ability, a terrifying possibility had been unlocked, the possibility for human to become Greed.

And no one would want that… save the most dangerous man who could.

  
  
  


There is a voice in the back of Eis’ head, and its kind and good and everything Eis is realizing he wants to be.

But it is not Eis.

It is Izumi Shingo, slowly awakening, and Eis… who knows he is only here because he is keeping Shingo alive, and maybe is realizing that he doesn’t want to go…

Is terrified.

_ They care about you, too. _ The voice says.  _ I can see it in Hina’s eyes, and in Hino’s. _

_ How could you care about nothingness? _

  
  
  


Hina wants to protect them. It goes beyond Shingo, now, she cares for Eis, and she doesn’t want him hurt, or Anku hurt. And she isn’t quite human, doesn’t know how but still knows her strength is more than that, and yet…

And yet she cannot understand the way they are.

They are determined enough that she knows it might get them killed, and she doesn’t know what to do.

When the dinosaur Yummy rips her dream in two, she feels far less bad about it than she should.

It hadn’t found her real one.

Deep down all she wants is for all of this to turn out okay.

(But perhaps it’s not her dream because she knows it’s so close to impossible.)

  
  
  


Goto keeps it in the back of his mind: he no longer hates them. This part he does as much for Date as for the world, because he maybe loves the frustrating doctor who had been his partner. Anku may not care about people, but he cares about their lives, and even that much might be partly a facade.

And Eis… Goto thinks he’s the only one far away enough to notice: Eis  _ wants _ to help people.

He asks Maki, what would happen if a Greed lost their key desire.

At best, they could find a new one.

At worst, they would crumble back to the elements which had made up their Medals.

They wouldn’t die, Maki insists, as Greed are not alive.

  
  
  


(Goto thinks about the way Hina and Anku and Date, maybe even himself, look at and interact with Eis.

Eis would still be mourned.)

  
  
  


It’s Shingo’s birthday, which Hina figures is the closest to a birthday she could ever have for Eis, and either way she wants to celebrate. Accident with Chiyoko aside, it might make her happy. To stay.

There are so many other things going on but Satonaka takes her shopping for a second gift that will look enough like the first in size.

She thinks she did well enough with it.

It’s Eis’ birthday, too, and he deserves more than just a handmedown gift for Shingo.

Sometimes, she thinks, underneath selfishness and that too-familiar smile… he might really be good.

Either way, she knows she cares about him.

  
  
  


“Was it you guys?” The host asks. “You guys who changed Kankuro?”

Eis laughs.

“It wasn’t,” he says. “Though I do wonder what he was like. Back when he could see his own desire.”

“He was incredible,” the host says. “He wanted to save everyone… ‘everyone should have a chance to live life to the fullest.’”

His face darkens, and he glares at Eis.

“I can’t let you get in my way.”

  
  
  


(Anku is not Eiji and he does not forgive as easily. But Eis is learning and yearning to be good, and he understands a connection to Hino Anku.)

  
  
  


Not-Ankh, for he is not and will never be Ankh, is nonetheless made of the same components and is as much a bird of prey as Ankh had been. Not-Ankh wants to consume Anku, even what is human of him, he wants to be whole.

He just wants all of him back in him, and Eis looks so comfortable being part human?

It’s not that complicated, really, it’s some odd form of getting himself back.

He just has to consume himself.

  
  
  


Anku’s last thought before not-Ankh consumes him is that he doesn’t want to die.

His last action is tossing a Kujaku back to Eis, to keep the Bird Greed from being made whole.

From being made dangerous.

  
  
  


When Goto arrives on the scene of the next Yummy attack, knocking them back with Cell Medal bullets that don’t quite hit them, for all that Hina and Date and Eis can do without Anku or Goto himself, Hina and Eis look at each other and immediately Understand.

This is where Goto went, and for some reason Date trusts him.

Except that, the next day, Date shows up with Proto-Birth, to fight Goto, and everyone is officially confused.

And Hina is worried more than anything for Anku.

  
  
  


And Eis doesn’t know what to do.

  
  
  


_ I’m awake _ , Shingo whispers into his own head.  _ Could you let me out? _

_ I’ll have to leave if I do. _

_ You need the help, and… and I trust you. _

_ Why? _

_ Because you’re a good person. _

Eis laughs, separates himself from Shingo. He doesn’t… he doesn’t know why.

Shingo wakes up, and Hina hugs him. And then she hugs Eis in arm form, and thanks him.

And it feels… good in a way Eis can’t describe.

  
  
  


It was a trick on Goto’s part. Of course it was, but it was a gift, too. It’s heartwarming, and they are all there for it.

“I helped save the world,” Goto says. “And hopefully I helped save you.”

Date Akira entered this story trying for a million Yen, so he could live. He ends it with more than that.

“I probably should…” he says. “But you guys could use a hand, right?”

It’s heartwarming but for who isn’t there.

But for Anku trapped inside of not-Ankh.

  
  
  


Anku is not quite conscious. Already half-Greed he is half Not-Ankh and half himself, and completely unable to do anything, not quite as aware of his surroundings as Shingo had been.

Anku is scared and he is angry and it reminds him of what he wants.

Very simply, he wants to live.

Very complicatedly, he wants everyone to have a chance to live their lives to the fullest.

His desire festers and grows, within a Greed host, something dangerous for OOO.

He wants…

  
  
  


(He wants the Greed who had taken his layers and made him feel again.)

  
  
  


“You know, he wants to be human,” Shingo quietly tells Hina. Eis is elsewhere, surprisingly okay with being relegated to an arm. “Or at least… he wants to help people, and I don’t think there are any desires more human than that.”

“Oh,” Hina says. “That’s… that’s good.”

Goto listens around the doorway, in a moment of extremely perfect-terrible timing.

Two men hold a secret that a monster who grew a heart is dying. They hold it because it’s his heart that will kill him.

A being made of nothingness can never get what they want.

  
  
  


They are fighting the not-Ankh.

The Not-Ankh is all but fighting himself.

No.

Anku is fighting the not-Ankh.

There can only be one Bird Greed, right? But Anku is so much more than that. He is a person with dreams and loves and  _ life _ . He is OOO.

(Eis is a Greed, and Greed cannot love, but there is something raw and deep and built on their complex bond that leaves him angry and desperate to  _ get his OOO back. _ )

Eis is reminded of all that in this moment, reminded of what this  _ not-Ankh _ has  _ taken _ from him, and, for the first time in a long time… he wants to destroy.

Finally, somehow, his body reforms.

Eis is the prototype, and he is powerful, and he  _ strikes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have completely bastardized the order of events but it was for the plot soooo
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the world begins.
> 
> (Two desires…)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh this thing is over 2k words of pain but I’m proud of it.
> 
> Have decided to make this a verse, and I already have plans for Gaim, Fourze, and Decade

Eis killed not-Ankh.

For the second time in his life he shatters just the right Medal inside of a Bird Greed to kill it. Something  _ only  _ he could  _ ever  _ do.

And for a moment, he feels whole.

It doesn’t last. This body he’s made doesn’t feel like his, he is a Greed of nothingness who can no longer subsist on such.

He is dying, because he wanted to help Anku. Anku, who wants life and the power to protect it.

And Eis does not want to die.

Humans do not die simply by their desired, however.

When he turns to Shingo, no words need to be spoken.

(He wanted to help people, but he is a Greed.

And Greed can never satisfy their desires.)

  
  
  


Anku’s Medals. Those are  _ Anku’s  _ Medals now.

The power needed to protect every life that is or will be, a Greed for a Greed.

Ankh was not a prototype, he was second, but he most certainly had some instability left.

Not-Ankh had, after all, cracked a single Tyranno Medal.

Anku is free and he can save lives.

  
  
  


Choices made, they both know.

They have chosen opposing sides.

  
  
  


(The sad reality: unlike Ankh and Eiji in another life, there is no need. There is nothing here but misunderstandings wrapped in tragedy.

Wrapped in the reality of two being half way between human and Greed.)

  
  
  


There should not be two dinosaur Greed, there should be a bird among them, but Eis is not just the prototype he is the  _ danger _ , and somewhere all of them can recognize the  _ eldest _ .

And somehow they know that he is…well, he’s dangerous.

He is weaker than Maki, technically, all of three Medals left to Maki’s five. But Eis was the prototype. Again, he  _ is _ dangerous _. _

He doesn’t know what his plan is, but he knows it ends in destruction, and he knows it’s all he can do.

He does not want to die.

He does not want to destroy.

(He wants to live.

He wants to help.)

It is a conundrum with no good answers, and for now he knows Anku would never wait for him to choose.

_ You should go home. You’re a good person. _

_ I’m a Greed; I’m no person at all. _

  
  
  


“I just wish I could do something,” Hina says. Satonaka hmms.

“Perhaps you could,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s worth the pay cut, but…”

Plans. For a belt.

Hopefully…

“What exactly are you offering me?” Hina asks. Satonaka shrugs, but Hina knows her friend enough to know the kindness.

“It’ll add to my hazard pay,” she says.

  
  
  


“Why are you here?” Mezool asks. “You seemed pretty loyal to OOO.”

“I’m a Greed,” Eis replies. “How much does a Greed know of loyalty?”

Mezool hmms.

“You know I always thought it was Ankh who would betray us,” she says. “Back then. But it was you.”

“What are you implying?” Eis challenges.

(He doesn’t like challenging, hasn’t had to do it in so long, after all…)

Mezool smirks and says nothing. The smirk, however, is almost sad.

  
  
  


Kazari is the first attempt, but Kazari fails as a Yummy host. As do first Mezool and then Gamel.

(They don’t have last feelings, last thoughts. They’re Greed, so of course they can’t. Something desperate, for Mezool and Kazari. So close to what they have forever yearned for, never to reach.

Perhaps Gamel’s is the closest. Mourning and almost love. But not quite.

Not for Greed.)

Eis can relate, to want something they could never have, but he knows Maki destroys them. Only Maki or himself could.

They were not alive, but they are gone.

“Why the hell are you doing this?” Anku growls.

“You would never understand.”

“Like hell I wouldn’t!”

They fight. Of course they do, that’s an inevitability. Except…

_ Why did you ever leave? _ Asks a voice in Eis’ head.

It doesn’t quite sound like Shingo. Perhaps it is himself.

(Perhaps he has finally developed a conscience of his own.)

They’re standing in the ocean’s waters, and Anku says “you’re a better person than me, I know that much.”

That’s when Eis jumps him, hits him, and knocks them both into the water.

Because how  _ dare _ he?

“Do you have any idea what it’s like?” Eis screams. “To want something but know that it’s  _ eating you alive _ ?”

Anku blinks. His makeup is smudged and he suddenly looks small, under him.

“Of course I do,” he says. “You said it yourself, I tried so hard to want nothing, but… I couldn’t. I wanted the power to…”

He trails off.

Anku will always value life. The chance for something, for senses and beauty and hope, all things that have faded with becoming a Greed but have kept him human in his certainty of them.

“You gave me the power to save lives,” he says. “It’s all I ever wanted, I… you stupid Greed…  _ Eis… _ thank you.”

Eis… steps back.

_ Go home _ .

  
  
  


“Hina… I need to tell you something.”

“Yes, Goto-San?”

“It’s about Eis…”

  
  
  


Eis is the most dangerous Greed. His Yummies desire destruction, and he can kill even his fellows.

He is the original.

When Maki attempts to attack Anku, well, Eis can easily be in the way.

And yet.

And yet Maki is intelligent, and dangerous, and he has finally achieved his own Greed form.

Enough to rip one of each red Medal from Anku without breaking them.

“Get out of here!” Eis yells, stopping any more damage.

“But—”

“I want to  _ help _ .”

He says it, finally. He  _ says  _ it and he’s made his choice. Anku does not know this part, but part of him still wants to trust Eis, and he does have to go.

So he does.

  
  
  


(And Eis survives, but Maki sees it.

He’s dying from his desires.

No good as a host.)

  
  
  


Anku goes to Kougami, grabs him and says “the world’s on the brink of hell so tell me what the hell you’re planning with all those cell Medals.”

Kougami smiles.

“Splendid,” he says. “It is time for you to know the true power of OOO.”

It’s what they need, right around now.

  
  
  


Eis all but stumbles into Cous Cousier, but he hides it well enough.

“Eis,” she says, helping him to a seat. “Are you okay?”

Outside, the world is in a crisis. Chiyoko’s grown up in Japan, and she is used to them, to a certain extent, but… she has a theory that her kids are involved, somehow.

Eis smiles.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Well… I have a few things to tell you.”

  
  
  


Anku prepares to take OOO’s power.

  
  
  


Hina blinks.

“Eis… is dying?”

“He might be,” Goto replies.

“We can’t tell Hino,” Date says. “There’s too much, and we know how much they love each other, even if they don’t…”

“Yeah,” Goto says.

Hina blinks, and stares, and… doesn’t have the time to cry.

  
  
  


“Well, what do you want to do?” Chiyoko asks.

“I want to help,” Eis says. “I…”

“We’ll miss you, you know,” Chiyoko says. “If you die.”

“You… you will?”

“Of course we will.”

“But I’m just—”

“You’re  _ Eis. _ ”

_ She’s right, you know _ , Shingo quietly adds.

  
  
  


Uva… might be the perfect host, after all.

Or at least, Maki thinks so.

(Uva’s last sentient thought is the experience of being the closest he will ever come to feeling true pain.)

  
  
  


A first battle should probably not be a Final Battle, but Kamen Rider Angel flies besides TaJaDor and Eis in Greed form, and she is knocked aside by the end.

Before the fight, Hina looks at Eis with a look only describable as tragic, understanding, hurt  _ knowing. _

TaJaDor is not enough to fight a dinosaur Greed. Not alone.

  
  
  


Satonaka Erika will be given a great bonus, for this fight, but somehow it matters less to her than the world, or simply shooting this writhing mass of Waste Yummies. At least in the moment. She will be glad for that bonus, you know.

Date Akira needs surgery for his survival but knows the world matters a little bit more than any dream, and either way has the money he requires.

Goto Shintaro wants exactly what is before him: to save the world.

All three are ready for this fight.

  
  
  


“He needs a different Combo,” Eis says. “I don’t know, he was always the planner.”

“But there are none,” Hina points out.

And Eis… has three Medals left, and a desire to save everyone, in this moment.

It will almost certainly kill him, and yet…

“Eis?” Hina asks. Eis turns to her, and he smiles.

“I hope I’ll still be able to say goodbye properly,” he says. “Anku! Don’t use TaJaDor! Use these!”

Ptera! Tricera! Tyranno!

He only had one Tyranno left.

  
  
  


(Hina thinks about the differences of Eis and Shingo’s smiles, in this moment. She does not want to lose either.)

  
  
  


Anku glances, for a moment, at the Medal in his hand. In this world the crack is a phantom, a jagged line marking where desire is ripping apart nothingness as though they weren’t from the same being. Only a Greed could see it, regardless.

Anku is not truly a Greed, not yet and not ever, can see it only somewhat as he glances at it for only a moment, could never imagine what it means.

How could he? The Greed of Nothingness could only ever be hurt by the Greed of Life, and he is that, and he would never hurt Eis now.

Maybe he should have thought about it, but he stays focused on the fight, during one.

He’s been through too much to let himself do otherwise.

  
  
  


They transform, and Eis fights as a specter Anku can see with ease and Maki is forced to flinch from, his powers in Anku’s OOO Driver.

Two as one, Eis besides Anku in the final fight.

A desire to save the world and a desire to help it.

Two desires.

The Greed of Nothingness.

  
  
  


Eis is the prototype. He is  _ dangerous _ . And now he has one more advantage: he has a  _ desire. _

He chose to best his nature for the sake of helping others, and for the OOO which had changed him for the better. And even if it costs him his life, he  _ never _ wanted the destruction and nothingness Maki would bring.

When the battle ends, Eis holds onto himself with all that he can, because he is the Greed of Nothingness more than Maki could ever match, even now, and he catches Anku in the fall.

“You almost died, in that fall,” he says, when they land next to Hina.

“Does it matter?” Anku asks. “We all lived.”

And that’s when Eis falls to his knees.

“Oi, Eis!” Anku growls. “What’s happening?”

“I wanted to help you,” Eis says. “And reach my hand… as far as it can go.”

“He’s dying,” Hina says, confirming that she knows.

And for now Eis is fully Greed, he cannot properly feel when Anku takes him into his arms, and his form… flickers?

He smiles, regardless.

“I’m sorry…” he says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t live for you. But… live for others now, like you used to. I can still feel all your desire.”

Hina sits down besides them, then. Eis takes her hand, and Anku’s hand and he presses his Medal between their hands.

And he smiles.

“Thank you.”

  
  
  


A long time ago Ankh died and left a Medal beneath the skin of the closest thing he had to a friend.

In another life, Ankh leaves the two halves of his soul to the two who changed him the most, who saved him the most.

In this moment, it is Hino Anku who is the one to hold the Medal of the being he had grown so much with.

In this moment, as Shingo wakes up and everyone else finds them, it hangs like a weight between himself and Hina’s two still-clasped hands.

The Medal, between their hands, falls into two jagged pieces, and as far as they know… Eis is dead.

  
  
  


(Eis is more than a Greed, and his last experience before he cracks is satisfaction.

It shouldn’t be possible for him.

And yet…)

  
  
  


(But he isn’t dead.)

  
  
  


Eis watches them all unite as a specter of his Greed arm, as the people he had come to know celebrate, despite the tragedy.

They did it, and he had helped them.

And that’s enough.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


…Anku values life, however.

He will not believe Eis is truly dead just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys enjoyed this to the end!

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @flaim-ita or @dancingqueen-mai for just Toku


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